Word: dulling
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...some weren't. Glanting took time off from work, flew to Carroll, and with the enthusiastic help of the town's Chamber of Commerce, invested the "pantheon"-a small concrete structure in a cornfield-with a rusty barbecue grill, some worn-out tires, and pictures of such dull heroes as William Bendix, Hugh Beaumont (the father in Leave It to Beaver), Alan Hale Jr. (the skipper in Gilligan 's Island) and Walter Mondale...
...national renown was beginning to seem like work. Club membership had crept past 450, including a proud contingent from Carroll. Most were men, despite club advocacy of a Dull Rights Amendment for feminists (women don't seem to be comfortable with dullness, says Troise). Printing and mailing costs ate up the income. The organizers figure they made about $100 apiece. "Wefutzed around with T shirts for a while," says Glanting, but the only size that sold was extra large, and "who wants to have ten gross of T shirts in his living room?" Glanting was losing money skipping work...
...told me once that my laugh is like a drunken sailor's on leave. But when I get to know somebody and can let my hair down, I am a boisterous, raucous, down-to-earth, no-nonsense lady. I live life with a zest. It has never been dull for me, and I don't anticipate that it ever will be." -By Gerald Clarke/Fort Lauderdale
Such passages are rarely dull, but they do produce a peculiar lifelessness in the novel as a whole. There is little to propel the reader forward except the expectation of more information. Vidal provides a multitude of incidents but no strong plot to bind them together. Cyrus abjures suspense; he has the habit of introducing characters by telling what finally happens to them first. Aside from the old man's large memory, Creation is unified by a single irony: Cyrus tells of his search for religious certainty to the person who will one day become an eminent philosopher...
...COURSE. Death in a Tenured Position stubs its toes a few times along the way. Cross seems confused about the ages of her characters; a man who seems thirtyish suddenly becomes a World War II vet, for example. The denouement of the mystery is predictable and dull. And a minor annoyance: Cross's work suffers from the classic academician's addiction to the semi-colon. Alas, it is no surprise, considering Amanda Cross is, in real life, Carolyn Heilbrun, a tenured professor of English at (of all places) Columbia...